Emma Frost (emmafrost762) wrote in lost_world, @ 2015-10-03 20:20:00 |
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Entry tags: | davis cameron, natasha romanoff |
Not-so-Little Girl Lost (Shifter Preserve, open thread)
Emma Frost ran through the landscape of her own mind, scrambling over fuzzy memories with jagged edges - there was the time she'd first learned her mom was an alcoholic, and that was the moment when she'd first touched another person's mind - in a mad, desperate race to stay one step ahead of the burning monster.
7:00 wake-up courtesy of the cooning music from her alarm clock.
Shower. Clothes. Breakfast.
First class - History, with the creepy, close-minded (in more ways than one) Professor Selene. Trying to pay attention, or at least look like she was, while telepathically flirting the fuck out of Sebastian -
dead burnt body and mind
- Shaw.
And then the Professor, shouting to her, and through her, to all the other students. Something had gone wrong in the city. Very, very wrong.
The Richards family was dead. The Avengers, either dead or off planet (it was so hard to tell with the super-patriot and company).
"It's up to us now, my children," Professor E had said as they were en route in the Wanderfalke that he and Donnie -
dead
- had built, taking stolen plans for a B-2 bomber and making something beautiful out of it.
Half an hour later, most of the team was dead.
Most of the city was.
And now - how much time had passed? it was impossible to tell inside the prison/fortress of your own mind - Emma was the only one left.
She turned a corner in the mnemonic maze and stumbled over a sharp-edged memory. To her tremendous lack of surprise, Emma saw that it looked like her father pointing an accusing finger. Well, really, she thought, that could be anything.
Then the walls, slate-grey slabs housing millions of minor memories crammed together, exploded, scouring her with shards of "2 + 7 = 9" and "The Palace is the best hotel in Midtown." Emma tried to get to her feet, sort of managed it, and threw her hands in front of her, arms crossed in an X, in a defensive gesture.
"Can we talk about this?" she asked, trying to sound brave.
Jean Grey had always been one of the only Omega level telepaths that she knew. Her ability to dart inside the minds of others, to play around and take what she needed, that had always been as much a blessing as a curse. The world was such a damn loud place when one had never quite learned to properly tune out other minds. She had a lot of anger, but she was glad that she finally had the chance to unleash some hell.
Emma was still alive, but not for long. The other telepath was strong, but Jean was confident that she could outmaneuver her.
She laughed at the question, that laughter filling Emma's head as though it were all around her.
"No."
"This is why people don't like you," Emma said through gritted teeth. She tried not to think about the sounds and sights and - and - the *smell* of them dying in fire. "You're very inconsiderate."
As she spoke, she was spending most of her strength on standing up straight. Even here, inside her own mind, she was second best to Jean fucking Grey.
The bitter realization gave her a little spiteful strength. "And you dress like a twat."
Jean's anger could be felt everywhere. Flames sprouted up from the ground, laying waste to Emma's mindscape.
"Like you're one to talk. You're not exactly little miss perfect, Frost."
She was so close to crushing the other telepath. It was a lot less effortless than she would pretend-Emma was strong, but Jean's will was stronger. Just a little more push and Emma would be nothing more than an empty shell.
Emma stared back, somehow holding it together as memories, thoughts, emotions, were scoured by the raw power of Psycho Bitch Grey. "Perfect? No. But I'm still better than you," she said as she put her hands together and then thrust them out at Jean in one last blast of psychic energy, putting everything she had into it and hoping that - if nothing else - she gave the ginger bitch a nasty scar...
"Better? Please," Jean's voice laughed, again filling Emma's mind and surrounding her.
There was another outpouring of psychic energy, intended to kill this time. Her anger at the mental scar that would be left by Emma only served to fuel the killing blow.
Emma wailed in utter agony as Jean's power burned every shred of her self... she'd never felt, never imagined, this much pain...
and then it was over.
"Unh..."
Emma's eyes opened. Her physical eyes.
She sat up and looked around. This was not the charred rubble of the Upper East Side...
It was a forest. Something about it looked vaguely weird to Emma, but the hyperventilating teenager couldn't pin it down, mainly on account of WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED?
Emma scrambled to her feet and took another look around, gingerly opening up her psychic eyes - but there was no sign, not even a hint, of Jean Fucking Grey (or whatever she'd become).
Also, and this was somehow only third or fourth on the list of WTF, she was completely naked (as opposed to kinda-naked as she was when in costume).
"Huh-hello?" Emma called out, not caring if it was a reckless thing to do. She needed some reassurance she wasn't the only person left in the world...
Whichever world this was...